Featured Costa Rica

Organized Real Estate Fraud Rings Threaten Property Owners in Costa Rica

With owners of expensive lots kept away from Costa Rica because of COVID-19 restrictions, organized property fraud rings have enlisted corrupt notaries to steal properties. At least 50 public notaries have been collaborating with criminal groups to illegally transfer properties or to forge documents to allow them to be used… Read More

Mexico Set to Become World’s Largest Legal Cannabis Market

Mexico is home to the world’s most powerful drug cartels, who have terrorized the country for years. But the country is poised to try something different in tackling the gangs by legalizing at least one of their products: marijuana. Mexico is set to become the world’s largest legal cannabis market… Read More

How an irrepressible Serbian arms dealer found a conduit to Saudi Arabia through Qatar

By Lawrence Marzouk and Stevan Dojčinović, OCCRP, 23 October 2020 OCCRP – A Cypriot shell firm accused of funnelling bribes on behalf of a notorious Serbian weapons dealer deposited $1.7 million into a secretive trust fund set up for a prominent Saudi, leaked bank records show. That fund’s Qatari… Read More

2nd October 2020

Offshore online gambling site seeks to become legal U.S. operator

A Costa Rica-based online sportsbook that illegally took bets from American customers for years has reached a nonprosecution agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, as the company attempts to move into the legal sports-betting market in the U.S. Gambling site 5Dimes and federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania… Read More

4th September 2020

Sophisticated schemes revealed in Costa Rica gold ring

By Zachary Goodwin, InSight Crime, 2 September 2020 InSight Crime – Raids across Costa Rica have exposed a web of front companies filtering illegally mined gold to the United States, in the kind of multimillion-dollar laundering scheme not typically associated with the Central American country. In late August, Costa… Read More

16th April 2020

Port of Limón Has Become Costa Rica’s Drug Trafficking Epicenter

By María Fernanda Ramírez, InSight Crime, 15 April 2020 InSight Crime — At daybreak on January 1, gunfire from a machine gun mounted on a car struck five men outside a church in Cieneguita, a small town on the outskirts of Puerto Limón, Costa Rica. Three of them died and two… Read More

24th September 2019

‘Rio Treaty’ Nations to Cooperate on Sanctions on Venezuela’s Maduro

Western Hemisphere nations voted Monday to employ a regional treaty to impose sanctions against embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, accusing his regime of criminal activity including drug trafficking and money laundering. In a meeting convened by the Organization of American States, 16 of the 19 states party to the Inter-American… Read More

30th March 2017

Costa Rica’s building, real estate, casino industries vulnerable to money laundering

The U.S. State Department’s annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report came out this month. In the Money Laundering and Financial Crimes section, the report’s second volume, Costa Rica is noted as being a favorable base for, “transnational criminal organizations to commit financial crimes due to its… Read More

20th July 2016

Costa Rica Approves Reforms Against Terrorism and Laundering

Under the banner of fighting drug trafficking, but more important the country not falling on the “black list”, Costa Rica’s legislator have approved in first debate reforms against terrorism and money laundering. With a vote of 39 (of 55) in favour, the reforms criminalize terrorism financing,… Read More

25th February 2016

New Costa Rica’s Li, charged in FIFA corruption, gets house arrest

NEW YORK: A New York judge agreed to a house arrest arrangement Wednesday for Eduardo Li, former president of the Costa Rican Football Federation charged in the FIFA corruption case, in exchange for a $5 million deposit. Read More

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